I have a soft spot for the next party, because it’s one of the reasons I started doing these posts many years ago, when my GeneticsJob asked me to do a brief run-down of all the parties’ policies on disability. In retrospect, they probably didn’t mean *all* the parties, but as you may have noticed, I don’t know when to stop. So let me introduce you to The Carers Alliance.
The Carers Alliance have two tickets in this election. They both start with the independents Steven Mayne and Paula Piccinini, who we haven’t met yet but who I think might be the anti-pokie machines people, and then the Democrats and Senator On-Line. Ticket 1 then goes Labor and ticket 2 goes Liberal – in other words, their preferences will be split 50/50 between the two parties. They don’t like the Liberal Democrats, the Secular Party, the CEC, or the other two Independents, Grant Beale and Glenn Shea, but again, they change the order between tickets.
The Carers Alliance is, not surprisingly, a one-issue party, started by people who are caring for family members with a disability. Their policies therefore fall into the areas Carers, Rights of Children, Education, Special Needs Health, Aged Care, Mental Health, Person-Centered Funding, and Veterans. I’m probably going to like this lot at least enough for a sympathy vote, though rumour among the support groups is that they are very disorganised, very loud and not very good at agreeing on anything. But these are the traits of a young, not very politicised political party, and hopefully things they will learn to curb for the sake of getting things done.
